


It's all cool you know, cause we're like, adventurers

by houseofthestars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action/Adventure, Exploration, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Full Recruitment Route, Gen, M/M, Other, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Treasure Hunting, and they were tombmates (oh my god they were tombmates), put those treasures back where they came from or so help me, spoilers for Claude's paralogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22742779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars
Summary: Linhardt clears his throat. “The exciting thing concerns a ruin relating to Saint Macuil, which if more than a cursory glance was given to it—” Claude rolls his eyes at this, for some reason, “—one might notice is mainly built underground. It could contain a great deal of valuable information relating to the later life not only of Macuil, but of some of his family.”“That sounds pretty special,” Ashe says. The Western Church never celebrated the other saints that much, saying that a prayer to Seiros would be heard by all, but Ashe had always liked the statues in Garreg Mach cathedral, brought back to a shine by the Professor and the church artisans even with the main dome in ruins.“Indeed. However it’s often in the nature of such structures to have a certain amount of security in place. Gates, doors, trap mechanisms, gates that lead to doors that lead to more traps. Locked chests too, perhaps. Which is where someone of your unique talents would come in handy.”“My unique talents… oh,” says Ashe, as the puzzle pieces fit together. “You want me to pick locks for you.”
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert, Linhardt von Hevring/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 22
Kudos: 152





	It's all cool you know, cause we're like, adventurers

It is as fine a day as it can be, Ashe thinks. War is war, as it has been for far too long, but new supply lines have just reached the monastery bringing with them food other than potatoes, which Ashe has been running out of ways to make interesting. He feels less guilty about swiping leftovers for Mewg if there’s more to go around, too. He’d thought about catching fish for her from the pond, but that’s all food for the monastery too, anyway, and time spent fishing should probably be spent training, surely. So he might as well just take the leftovers in the end anyway, right? At least then he’s sure it was something nobody else wanted.

Anyway, as it is Mewg is now curled up on a circle in his lap as he sits with his back against one of the posts of the gazebo. It’s the perfect spot as it catches the afternoon sun as it peeks between two of the monastery buildings, a little slice of sunshine for an hour or so. They sit here after Mewg gets fed and a little while before he has to go to war council, so they can both hang out and enjoy the sun. She tends to dribble when she’s purring and leave damp spots on Ashe’s breeches, but he doesn’t mind too much.

Next to him, Caspar is swishing a stick back and forth through the grass, chattering about something or other. Ashe is trying his best to follow the story but Caspar does somewhat have a tendency to go off on tangents, or start telling another, smaller story halfway through, or just forget the first story entirely and talk about something else. Sometimes Ashe tries his best to get him back on track, but sometimes it’s just nice to close his eyes, have a cat in his lap, feel the sun on his face and listen to Caspar talk.

“So anyway, after that I was feeling pretty good, so I told the other guy - who like, had this little lizard in his pocket? I dunno what that was about, it was like, poking out the top and licking its own eyeball and stuff, pretty weird - I told him ‘unless you wanna end up like your buddy over there, you best keep moving’ and it was like both him and the lizard got all mean at the same time? I really wanted to laugh but I was trying to be mean too, so I couldn’t. Anyway, there’s both him and this lizard giving me the stink eye, and the man says, he says— oh, hey, Lin.”

“I don’t think he would have said that, since I wasn’t there,” says a laconic voice, and Ashe cracks open one eye. Sure enough, Linhardt is standing over them, a book in one hand and a pillow in the other, casting a long-limbed shadow across Caspar. “Don’t let me disturb you, I was just looking for a spot in the sun, but it seems all the best places are taken today.”

Ashe flinches in guilt, which makes Mewg raise her head to look at him in indignation, tail flicking. “Sorry,” Ashe says to Mewg, and then “Sorry, Linhardt. I guess we beat you to it, huh? There might be room if we move up.”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, I wouldn’t want to upset the cat further, that would be awful. I’m actually supposed to be seeing the Professor in five minutes or so but I was looking for an excuse to forget to go.” Linhardt sits down on the grass with them anyway, though, as if his legs have decided that’s enough standing up for now and crumple up of their own accord. Linhardt is a funny one, Ashe thinks. He always feels a little like Linhardt is making fun of him even if they’re just talking about the weather together. Caspar tells him that’s just what Linhardt is like and not to take it seriously, but that’s easy for him to say. Caspar has known Linhardt far longer, and they’re both Adrestian, which is pretty different from Faerghus, and they’re both nobles. Technically. Even if they’ve both abandoned the Empire, and neither of them are particularly like any other nobles Ashe knows.

Ashe’s eyes fall on Linhardt’s book. That’s something to talk about, right? “Hey! Uh, what are you reading?”

Linhardt’s mouth drops, and he lifts the book to his face, regarding it sadly. “Ah, well, this is a current problem of mine. I would very much like to read this book, but when I brought it back to my room I realised it has a locking mechanism that I’ve been struggling to open.” Linhardt turns the edge towards Ashe, and sure enough there is a metal band set into the covers of the book that fastens at its edge, with a keyhole set in the side.

“Woah. That must be a pretty special book to have its own lock.”

“It’s a rare text discussing Saint Macuil’s early life, or at least that’s what I think it is. It was rather hard to come by.”

“Huh. Is there someone you can ask? Did you buy it in town from that red haired lady?”

Linhardt turns it again and taps a small metal loop on the spine. “It seems like it used to have a key attached on a chain. Unfortunately it has been removed, and my skills at opening locks are… intermediate, I’d say. I have the theory down but my practice is lacking.”

Ashe can’t say he isn’t intrigued. What kind of book needs a lock? Books with secrets in, he supposes. Like special magic, or hidden histories, or dark truths. It’s kind of exciting. “May I?” he asks politely, holding out his hand. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to open it, but I can take a look, if you like.”

Linhardt’s eyebrows raise, but he hands the book over. It feels heavier in Ashe’s hands than he’s expecting.

“I didn’t know this was a skill of yours, Ashe.”

“Uh, yeah.” Ashe shrugs. “I’m not too proud of it, so I don’t talk about it too much. But back before Lonato adopted me, when I was still on the streets, I used to... get into a bit of trouble sometimes. That’s all in the past, of course! But, y’know, the knack’s been pretty handy in missions from time to time, and I aced my Thief exam at the Academy. I don’t have my proper tools on me right now, but… hey, Caspar, can you take Mewg?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure,” Caspar says, and scoops Mewg up from Ashe’s lap, cradling her on her back like a baby. She wiggles for a moment or two, then relents, purring passive-aggressively, her legs dangling above her own belly.

Ashe props the book in his newly empty lap, reaches into his hair and pulls out one of the wire grips holding his hair back on one side. He appraises it - fine enough - then snaps it in half and bends the ends. Raking a lock is a little trickier with improvised tools, but he’s had enough practice recently to probably make it work. He pokes around experimentally.

“Hmm. It seems like a normal lock to me, it’s just pretty delicate and there’s quite a few pins. It might take a little while, if you don’t mind.”

“No rush, I don’t have anywhere better to be.”

Ashe bends over the book, falling into concentration, a gentle rhythm of push and pull. Little by little, piece by piece, he feels the pins push into place. The trick is the tension, really, if you push too hard you undo all your hard work and have to start again, but if you can keep that hand steady and then just keep scrubbing, then—

“Ah!” Ashe says, pleased, as the plug turns and the lock slides open. He looks up and finds that both Caspar and Linhardt have been leaning over him, watching his every move. Mewg is still cradled in Caspar’s arms.

“Ashe, that was so _cool,_ ” Caspar breathes, a grin splitting his face, and Ashe feels a warmth in his cheeks that has nothing to do with the afternoon sun. He pushes his hair behind his ear nervously.

“You’ve seen me do it plenty on missions! It’s nothing new.”

“Uh, _yeah,_ but you’re usually like the other side of the formation to me! Never seen it up close. That’s awesome.”

“It’s very impressive,” Linhardt agrees. “I’d tried to do the same but couldn’t get all the pins. I like to think I have a rather steady hand but that was quite something. Hmm, I wonder if your archery skills have anything to do with it?”

“Just lots of practice, I think. Well, I’m glad I could help,” Ashe says. It feels a little awkward to be proud of this skill, considering how he learnt it, but at least he’s using it to help people these days. He hands the book over and Linhardt’s already cracking it open, running his hands over the first page. A little shimmer of magic responds to his touch, bringing up a crest Ashe doesn’t recognise, and Linhardt looks delighted.

“Well, I’m very grateful. I’m quite looking forward to reading this, I’m hoping to cross-reference it with another book of old Srengi legends. There’s a surprising amount in their stories that corresponds to legends of Saint Macuil, which is rather interesting.”

“Oh, Sylvain told me some stories from Sreng once!” Ashe says, brightening. “Does your book have the one about the girl who danced on the wind, and the fighter who chased—”

“Chased her across the desert into a treasure cave? That one is nonsense, I’m afraid. Mostly, anyway.”

“Oh. I just thought it was good fun, like when he had to fight the bandits, and he thought there were hundreds of them, but they were making mirages of themselves!” Ashe had loved that one. Sylvain was actually a pretty good storyteller when you got him to commit to it. If he was really enjoying himself, and Felix wasn’t around to make fun of him, he even did voices for the different characters.

“Mm, yes, lovely.” Linhardt says, and then, with rather more gusto: “It does mention an oasis with a natural stone archway in that story though, which I’ve also heard of in an old story of Saint Macuil, where he turned it into a forge and made a blade for Seiros herself. It’s an odd thing to have repeated twice in legends from two different places, so it makes me rather curious.”

“So you think the oasis might be a real place?”

Linhardt shrugs. “Maybe, or maybe something else referenced in relation to it. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. And even if it is, I don’t fancy spending my time walking all around Sreng looking for it, it would be a dreadful bother, especially as there are no other landmarks recorded—”

“Wait, are you guys talking about Sreng?” Caspar says suddenly, head lifting from where he’s been poking the pads of Mewg’s front paws, dodging her lazy vengeance swipes. “Didn’t Claude go there a week or two ago?”

Linhardt stills. “Did he now?”

“Yeah, he went with the Professor and Hilda and a couple of other guys, I guess like some of the others from the Alliance? Though we’re kinda all from the Alliance in a way now. He got a super sweet sword out of it and I think they fought a really big beast, like bigger than any of the ones we see around here. Maybe even as big as that one at Lake Teutates. Anyway, Hilda was complaining about sand in her boots for like, a week, she made me carry all her equipment because she said it made her feet hurt, which I don’t really get but—”

“I see.” Linhardt clambers to his feet as abruptly as he’d sat down, long limbs unfolding. “Thank you, Caspar. You’ve reminded me of somewhere I was supposed to be fifteen minutes ago.”

“I thought you were avoiding that meeting with the Professor?”

“I was, but Claude will be there too, and now I have to ask him extremely urgently about Sreng. Thank you again for your help, Ashe. It made going to the trouble of smuggling this out of the librarian's office worth it.”

“Oh, you’re welcome! Any time. Wait, did you just say—”

Linhardt, somehow, is already halfway down the path back into the main monastery building.

“Did he just say he stole that book?” Ashe says to Caspar, scandalised, but Caspar is already back to playing with Mewg.

—

It’s a day or two later - during a blessedly potato-free breakfast - when two figures slide onto the bench opposite Ashe. When he looks up, it’s Linhardt again, but this time Claude is beside him, the pair of them wearing equally inscrutable expressions.

It’s a little disconcerting to suddenly have Claude so close, actually. Sure, they were friendly enough at the Academy, but it’s different now; Claude is the closest they all have to a king these days. Mister Leader Man shining in gold and yellow, the Alliance flag literally draped over his shoulder. He’s usually the far end of the cardinal’s room with the Professor talking grand strategy, or swooping high above the rest of them on his eerie white wyvern in formation with Hilda and Petra. Close up he looks… shorter.

That’s not important right now, though, because Ashe has a bone to pick with Linhardt. “Linhardt! You tricked me,” he says hotly, and Linhardt presses the fingers of one hand to his chest, affronted.

“I did no such thing. When did I trick you? I’ve only just sat down.”

“You…” Ashe glances at Seteth, dining a few tables away with Flayn and the Professor, and lowers his voice, “ _stole_ that book and then you got me to open it!”

“That isn’t how I remember it. You offered your aid and I accepted.”

“Well, sure, but… I wouldn’t have helped if I’d known it was stolen, Linhardt. That’s not right.”

“I dunno, Ashe,” says Claude, cutting in. “Before Linhardt got a hold of it, it was sitting in a dusty cabinet, locked away in some stuffy clergyman’s office. Knowledge, hidden away from inquiring eyes. Now, it is fulfilling its purpose of educating others. Of _inspiring_ others, even. Isn’t that better?”

“No!” snaps Ashe, and then remembers who he's talking to. “I mean, uh, no, your Grace. Begging your pardon, but just because you don’t agree with how someone is using their own belongings, it doesn’t mean you can decide it’s yours!”

“What if I’m just borrowing it?” Linhardt says.

“Are you going to give it back?”

“Eventually,” Linhardt says, after some thought.

“Soon?” Ashe pushes.

“Well,” Linhardt brightens. “You can help with that part, actually. If you come with us to Sreng. The sooner we go, the sooner we can give the book back, theoretically.”

“Wait, go where? To Sreng?”

Claude and Linhardt share a look, as if looking for a cue in one another’s faces, and after finding whatever it is they both require they turn back to Ashe.

“So. Linhardt was telling me about some of the legends in this book, and after some, uh, debate, we decided that it would be worth a return visit,” Claude says. “Return for me, I mean, I went on a trip there a couple of weeks ago. Anyway. We had a chat, and if our information lines up in the way that we think it does—”

“It does,” Linhardt insists.

“—then we might know the whereabouts of something pretty exciting. Wanna come see it?”

“Is this a mission? Your Grace?”

Claude looks cagey. “Nooooot really. Teach is staying here, they can handle things on their own for a day or two. And this isn’t an order, either, so enough with the ‘Your Grace’s - I get enough of those back in Derdriu from stuffy old men who don’t mean it. But we would like you to come.”

Ashe blinks. “I mean, if I can help I guess I could come along, but you’re a much better archer than me! Maybe Raphael would be a better choice, or Hilda…”

Linhardt clears his throat. “The exciting thing concerns a ruin relating to Saint Macuil, which if more than a cursory glance was given to it—” Claude rolls his eyes at this, for some reason, “—one might notice is mainly built underground. It could contain a great deal of valuable information relating to the later life not only of Macuil, but of some of his family.”

“That sounds pretty special,” Ashe says. The Western Church never celebrated the other saints that much, saying that a prayer to Seiros would be heard by all, but Ashe had always liked the statues in Garreg Mach cathedral, brought back to a shine by the Professor and the church artisans even with the main dome in ruins.

“Indeed. However it’s often in the nature of such structures to have a certain amount of security in place. Gates, doors, trap mechanisms, gates that lead to doors that lead to more traps. Locked chests too, perhaps. Which is where someone of your unique talents would come in handy.”

“My unique talents… oh,” says Ashe, as the puzzle pieces fit together. “You want me to pick locks for you.”

“Well as you saw, my skills are somewhat lacking in comparison, and it’s my experience that these sorts of places demand that you get it right on the first try or face some rather unsavoury consequences. So it would be very useful to have you there.”

“What do you say, Ashe? Fancy a field trip?” Claude says, and he does have a very charming smile. But Ashe is going to be a knight one day, and charming smiles aren’t enough to shake the iron integrity of a knight.

“No thank you,” he says, and two faces fall in front of him.

“Why not?” Linhardt says.

“I’m sorry Linhardt, but helping you break into the ruins is just as bad as unlocking that book for you! Worse, even!”

“In what way?” Claude says. “They’re just ruins, Ashe. No one lives there anymore.”

“But someone did, your- uh, Claude,” Ashe insists. “I might- I might not be too much of a believer, these days, but lots of other people are. It just doesn’t seem right.”

Both Claude and Linhardt look baffled. “But it’s an underground ruin. And we found it. And we can go there,” Linhardt says, plaintively.

“If you two want to go, that’s fine, but leave me out of it, ok?” It’s not really fine, per se, but Ashe doesn’t feel like trying to stop two nobles with crests from going anywhere they really want to go, even if one of them does get queasy at the sight of blood. “Though I don’t think you should go,” he says, just to make sure he’s said it.

Linhardt opens his mouth to argue but Claude nudges him with an elbow. Surprisingly, Linhardt does in fact shut his mouth again.

“Okay, Ashe, we don’t wanna argue with you over breakfast,” Claude says. “But think about it, ok? Cause really, this is like a little piece of the history, the _legacy_ of Fódlan, that we’ve uncovered here. And if it took this much for me and Linhardt just to work out it exists, then who knows if anyone else will find it? So if we don’t go, it’ll get forgotten by the sands of time. And also the literal sand that is in the desert. And I dunno, that just seems a shame to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

Ashe looks at Claude, a stab of doubt twisting his mouth. All Ashe’s favourite stories have been told as a way to keep the history of Fódlan alive, shared mouth to mouth until they could be written down. Maybe a little distorted along the way, but with a grain of truth inside the pearlescent shine of their tales. Despite himself, the idea of getting a chance to uncover old, untold histories sends a little thrill down Ashe’s spine.

He still hesitates, though, and before he can say anything Claude shrugs and nudges Linhardt again. “We’ll leave you to your breakfast, anyway, but think about it. C’mon, Lin.”

—

It takes two days before he and Caspar go to find Linhardt, who’s in the old Black Eagle classroom, presumably out of habit. He’s laid along the length of a table, hands folded on his stomach, legs dangling off the side, and only opens an eye when Ashe clears his throat.

“If we go,” Ashe says, “I want you to promise me some things.”

“Mm?”

“I’m not opening anything that isn’t necessary for us to open. I’ll open doors, and help disable traps if I need to, because I don’t want anyone to get hurt. But I’m not opening treasure chests.”

“Mm.”

“And we’re just there to look, right? We’re not going to take anything back to the monastery?”

Linhardt looks torn. “How about,” he says carefully, “I promise not to remove anything that is not of vital importance. Say, perhaps, we encountered an incredibly important and rare artefact that could in some way hasten the end of the war. Separate to the Professor, I mean. Wouldn’t you say we would need to bring that back here?”

“He’s got a point, Ashe,” Caspar says. “Like Claude already found that cool sword, there might be other stuff that could help in battle, and defending the helpless and stuff.” He gasps. “Whoa, what if I find like, an axe that never needs sharpening? Or like, some gauntlets that are super light, like how Relics are supposed to be if you have the right crest? That’d be sweet.”

“You can’t just take weapons because they’re cool!” Ashe retorts. “Or even if they would be good in battle.”

Caspar looks crestfallen.

“But… if there was something really really important, and we all think it’s important, then I guess we can talk about it. And then after the war is over we can go and put it back.”

Caspar brightens again, and Linhardt sits up and claps his hands together once, triumphantly. “Alright then. Ashe Ubert, I believe we have a deal. I’ll ask Claude to arrange passage for three from Derdriu.”

“Four, you mean,” Caspar says. “I’m coming too.”

“Are you?”

“Of course he is,” says Ashe, at the same time as Caspar says “Well, yeah, obviously.”

Linhardt seems to accept this without further elaboration. “Well, just make sure you’re both ready to go before the end of the week. Do either of you have a crowbar?”

—

Ashe has been to Gautier before, just once with Lonato, but when he asked Sylvain if it was similar to Sreng he’d laughed at Ashe. It’s completely different, he’d said, like weirdly so. The way he’d described it -the dramatic shift in landscape from one side of the mountains to the other - had made Ashe think of it as if the touch of the Goddess ended at Gautier’s border. Even with Sylvain’s warning, Ashe still isn’t prepared for the heat, the endless sand and scrub, the brown-orange-red mountains that look like they’ve pushed themselves whole from the ground below. He’s glad he ditched his thick Faerghan wools for this one.

Claude has a patterned length of fabric wrapped around his head, and he too has swapped his heavy flying jacket for something more lightweight, though his colourful sash still sits on his waist. He points away from the dusty little harbour village they’ve docked in and into the desert, eyes half shut against the bright light reflecting off the pale scrubland.

“We need to head pretty much due north,” he says, shading his eyes with one hand, “until I know we’re getting close. But at a certain point we need to work out a detour.”

“What kind of detour?” Linhardt says, who’s fanning himself with a stretch of parchment that looks like it has Professor Hanneman’s writing on it.

“The kind of detour where we don’t have to fight a giant wind monster for the second time in three weeks? It was pretty cool about it last time, but I feel like fighting it again might be asking for trouble.”

“It’s not dead?” Caspar asks, confused, and then “Ohhhh, did it go to sleep like the one at Lake Teutates?”

Claude nods. “I think it was only awake last time because some bandits got there before us and disturbed it. So hopefully, if we can give it a wide enough berth, we can just kinda… find the entrance to the ruins without bothering it too much. Maybe.”

“I could probably take it,” Caspar says, rolling his shoulders, “But fine, whatever. Took me sooooo long not to feel waterlogged after the lake guy.”

“I agree,” says Linhardt. “I still feel like my ears are blocked, sometimes. Claude, how far are we going, exactly?”

“Not that far,” Claude says evasively. “C’mon, the faster we set off the faster we get there.”

What follows is an hour of trekking through the desert, under an endless pale blue sky and through short, tired-looking vegetation, the ground shifting and skittering under their boots so they have to scramble up slopes and half-slide down the other side. Caspar approaches it with the gusto he approaches most things, sometimes taking the uphill slopes at a determined run and looking pleased with himself when he makes it in one go without slipping. When he does, he digs his heels into the dirt and then reaches out to wrap hands around Ashe’s wrists and pull him up alongside. His palms are too warm against Ashe’s already overheated skin and gritty from their trek but Ashe would never refuse the help.

“Not regretting coming along, are you?” Ashe asks after a particularly steep slope almost sends the pair of them tumbling back down to the bottom.

“No way! My calves are gonna be like, super strong after this, I’m gonna be able to do a roundhouse kick like _pow._ And anyway, we’re a team, right? Someone else has gotta be around to help you keep those guys on the straight and narrow.”

He jerks a thumb behind them. Linhardt and Claude have been talking about crests since they first started walking, which Ashe has a feeling is partly an attempt to distract Linhardt from the actual journey. Still, it seems to be working, as they’re only just behind, Claude’s hands waving animatedly as he talks, a thin film of dust over the pair of them.

“I may not know Claude too well,” Caspar continues, “But I know Linhardt, and he’s not gonna be able to help himself if there’s some like, super good crest stuff in there or whatever.”

Ashe laughs. “Well, in that case I’m glad you’re my partner. In justice, I mean.”

“Yeah!” Caspar grins, pumping a fist. “Partners in justice. Now we sound super cool.”

They reach the crest of a larger hill, which is when Claude calls for them to stop; when Ashe looks down at the valley below, and gasps when he sees the reason why. A beast far bigger than any they have encountered in skirmishes curls around itself, gigantic feathered wings folded into its sides. Ashe can only begin to imagine how big it is when it’s standing, when those wings are unfurled. It slumbers among the crumbled remains of walls and courtyards; faceless statues, worn smooth by wind and sand, keep an eyeless watch around the perimeter of the ruins. A shiver goes down the length of Ashe’s spine. Even if there probably aren’t ghosts here - probably - the whole place is rather unsettling.

Linhardt’s face, however, breaks into pure joy. He rifles through his book bag, pulling out a battered notebook and rifling through its pages until he finds one with a rough map sketched on it. Claude immediately crowds in to look at it, eyes flicking between the page and the scene before them.

“You sure weren’t far off,” he says, eyebrows lifting.

Linhardt clears his throat, obviously trying not to preen. “I don’t do all this research for nothing,” he says, smoothing down the page with his palm. “You can see the oasis to the south east, as well. Could be worth a detour on the way back if we have the time.”

Ashe is still looking at the beast. “You _fought_ that?” he asks Claude incredulously, who shrugs.

“With Hilda and Teach and a couple of others. It wasn’t the most fun I’ve had, that’s for sure, so I’m not in a rush to do it again. Lin, where do you reckon this entrance to the ruins is?”

“Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea,” Linhardt says, seating himself down on a nearby rock now he seems satisfied with his survey of the area. “We probably need to get a bit closer and scout it out.”

“Ashe, how about you and I take a look?”

Ashe looks down at the beast, feeling another shiver down his spine, but nods, and the two of them pick out a path down through the valley. The sheer size of it only becomes more obvious the closer they get; by the time they can survey the area for entrances, Ashe can hear its even sleeping breath rumbling deep in its chest, can see the faint magpie-like iridescence of its wing feathers in the sunlight. He can even taste the raw magic humming from it like a metallic film in the air - Ashe isn’t much of a mage, so Linhardt must be able to sense it from back up on the hill. It really is nothing like any of the beasts Ashe has fought before, he thinks. It looks… it looks like it came from another world.

They slip from crumbled wall to crumbled wall silently in a wide circle, Claude pointing directions with two fingers, Ashe trying to keep his step light but sure across the sand and gravel. Finally, he spots it - a point where the ground slopes where the ends of two ragged walls meet, with collapsed columns either side, as if an archway had once stood there. Unfortunately, it sits just feet from the beast’s long feathered tail as it wraps around a wall.

Ashe signs at Claude - _should I get closer?_ \- and Claude shakes his head, angling a thumb at his own chest instead, and then gesturing back to the hill. A quick salute, and Ashe makes his way back to Caspar and Linhardt. Linhardt is fanning himself with his parchment on his rock while Caspar is kicking stones down the hill.

“What’s the sitch?” Caspar says when he spots Ashe.

“We think we’ve found the way in, but if we’re right, it’s going to be tricky to avoid the beast. Claude’s just making sure.”

“We were right,” calls Claude’s voice up the hill.

“Let me guess,” Linhardt says. “Our feathered friend over there is sitting on it.”

“Almost. We can get in, but we’re gonna have to be careful not to wake it up on our way.”

As if compelled by some unknown force, Linhardt, Claude and Ashe all turn to look at Caspar.

“What!?” Caspar shouts. “I can be stealthy. I just choose not to be. But I could choose to, if I wanted to choose that.”

“See, you say that, Caspar, but the thing is I don’t believe you in the slightest,” says Linhardt. He rubs his chin thoughtfully, looking Caspar up and down. “I suppose I could just cast a silence spell on you…”

“No way! That takes like a day to wear off minimum. I can do this.”

“Hmm. Confident words from Caspar ‘hello Imperial forces, here is my battalion’ von Bergliez.”

“That was one time! You wanna make a little wager? Vulnerary says I can get past without waking it up.”

“If you do wake it up we’re going to need more than a vulnerary,” says Linhardt, but Claude says “You’re on, Caspar.”

“Awright!” yells Caspar, and then “oh shit, wait,” and then he stops talking. Ashe goes over to him and puts a hand on each of his shoulders, and Caspar immediately focuses straight on him, blue eyes fixed on grey.

“You know the scouting signals?” Ashe says, and Caspar nods.

“You remember the training on how to keep your breathing quiet?”

Caspar nods.

“Okay. You’ve got this,” Ashe says, and Caspar opens his mouth, but then shuts it again and nods determinedly with a grin.

And true to his word, Caspar stays quiet. Even when they step close enough that the hum of magic from the beast starts giving them static shocks off their own weapons. Even when the beast heaves a vast sigh and shifts its weight, in a way that sounds like a rumble of thunder in the cloudless sky. And even when its tail flicks faintly in its sleep, sending a gust of wind so strong that it almost bowls Ashe and Linhardt over; he catches Ashe as Claude gets a hold of one of Linhardt’s sleeves, and then four of them sway, but recover, and reach the entrance. Ashe squeezes Caspar’s elbow in congratulation, grinning, and Claude hands him a vulnerary, one finger pressed to a smiling mouth as a reminder to keep quiet until they’re clear.

As soon as they dip below the surface of the ruins Ashe feels blind, the harsh light outside replaced with darkness too quickly for his eyes to adjust, and the sudden change in temperature sends goosebumps flaring up and down his arms. There’s a whoosh of fire magic and Linhardt lights a torch that Claude pulls from his pack, illuminating a stone corridor with looping Fódlaner knot patterns carved into it that Linhardt immediately starts tracing with his magic-bruised fingers. When he does, sand crumbles from them onto the floor.

“I think we should be clear of our friend upstairs for now,” Claude says. “Good job, guys. Now, let’s explore some ruins, huh?”

“Hell yeah!” says Caspar, and then “Aw, man, it feels good to make noise again. I can’t believe we gotta do that again on the way out.”

—

The corridor widens as it slopes further underground, winding in what seems to be a wide spiral, and Claude lights any of the old withered torches that will accept a flame as they pass, slowly revealing more of the space to them. It’s cold, but dry, with the smell of the desert in the still air along with something organic, like dry leaves.

“So uh, this place,” Ashe says, because he has to ask, “there’s nothing in the research you guys have done about it being... haunted, then?”

Claude turns around to look at him, his face lit at odd angles by the torch, and grins. “You as well, huh? I should put you and Lysithea on late night patrol together.”

“Hey, I’m only asking!” Ashe says defensively. “Out of curiosity. That’s all.”

“Well, uh, I never heard anything about ghosts. What about you, Lin?”

“Statistically speaking, at least one person has probably died down here, though I don’t know how that corresponds to the likelihood of their soul remaining trapped here forever,” Linhardt says mildly. He has the book Ashe unlocked for him crooked in his elbow now, open at a page of dense text. “On the bright side, look at these columns. They’re carved out of the rock, so they serve no structural purpose, but they look almost identical to those found in the Holy Mausoleum. Fascinating!”

Eventually the light from Claude’s torch stops reaching the edges of the space in which they sit, and when Claude reaches out, waving the torch to and fro, it becomes apparent that they are in a wider area, the ceiling arching high above them. The darkness seems to crowd in on them, and Ashe feels a small knot of anxiety at the top of his stomach.

Nothing in their notes about ghosts. It’s probably fine. Everything will be fine—

“ _Yo!_ ” Caspar shouts suddenly, from behind him, and Ashe nearly jumps a foot into the air. The call bounces off the walls of the space - _yo, yo_ \- in a way that makes Caspar grin. He strides past them all into the darkness and waves his arms around. “Niiiice. Seems pretty big in here!”

“Caspar! You nearly gave poor Ashe a heart attack,” Linhardt scolds, and now along with his still-pounding heart Ashe can now feel himself blushing all the way from his neck to the tips of his ears.

To his credit Caspar looks suitably contrite. “Oh shit, sorry dude. You know how it is, you see a big cave, you wanna make it echo. I won’t do that again, I promise.”

“It’s ok. You just surprised me,” Ashe says faintly.

“Caspar, don’t go too far, we don’t know what’s in here,” Claude says. “Lin, have you got a way to give us a bit more light? I don’t think the torch is gonna cut it for this one.”

“Perhaps,” Linhardt muses, and conjures more fire magic; after muttering under his breath for a moment, as if working out a particularly lengthy sum, he twists his hands and the flame spins and breaks into a dozen smaller sparks, like candle flames without the wick. They float upwards from Linhardt’s hands, bathing the space in gentle golden light as they hover.

“That’s amazing!” Ashe says, and Linhardt gets that pleased-with-himself look again.

Claude whistles as he turns in a circle, head turned upwards, and Ashe feels a thrill go through him as he looks too. The newly illuminated chamber is circular, high ceilinged, with those carved columns around its circumference, leading up to a carved dome of a ceiling that oddly reminds Ashe of the dome in Garreg Mach before its destruction. In the centre of the room is what looks like a long-dry fountain, crumbled and in ruins, the broken wings of stone birds scattered across the floor. Hexagonal tiles run under their feet, covered in more Fódlaner patterns, though occasionally one sits with a more complex circular pattern within. One of those is right by Ashe’s foot, actually, and when he looks at it more closely he yanks his leg away hurriedly. Claude notices his reaction and takes a step forward, curious.

“Uh, guys, be careful,” Ashe says hurriedly, holding a hand out in warning. “I don’t like the look of these floor tiles. Remember that place under the monastery where you found Flayn? Leonie was telling me about it a while back.”

Claude carefully makes his way over to Ashe and then crouches down for a closer look. “Huh. Yeah, that’s a sigil alright. Kinda disguised but the structure’s there. Almost like it’s in code, which is pretty cool. Looks a bit like... the one for a thunder spell? Linhardt, come take a look.”

“No need, there’s one over here as well and it has scorch marks on it,” Linhardt says, sliding one foot gingerly to the left. “Best we avoid stepping on those, I think.”

“Ooookay, roger that,” Caspar says seriously, putting two fingers to his temple in salute. He looks towards the centre of the room. “That fountain looks pretty wrecked, huh. You think someone’s been here before? Explorers like us, I mean.”

“Bandits, more likely,” Claude says, picking his way over to the fountain. He traces his finger over a pattern on the side of the fountain basin, hooks his torch in the curved wings of a bird, and then rummages in his bag, pulling out a piece of parchment and some chalk. He presses the parchment to the side of the fountain and rubs over it with the chalk, leaving an impression of the carving on the paper. “Awful lot of Fódlaner patterns in here for a place in Sreng, huh, Lin?”

“Indeed. The whole design of this place is curious. Look up above the columns on the walls, too,” Linhardt says. “Little chutes, or vents, with basins on the floor below. Perhaps more fountains? I wonder if there was a lot more water in this area, previously. Seems a rather extravagant display for a desert.”

Claude and Linhardt make a circle of the room together, poking at prodding at features, sometimes grabbing the other’s wrist to direct their attention to one thing or another. It’s fun seeing the pair of them so excited, Ashe thinks, even if the thrumming of his heart that started when they entered the room and peaked with Caspar’s shout hasn’t quite left him yet. Perhaps it’s the faint cooling of the air as they descend further underground, or the odd flickering shadows cast by Linhardt’s tiny flames in the large space, or the very real threat of electrocution if any of them forget to look where they’re going. It’s exciting, sure, but he can’t help but wonder what else a place like this might have in store for them.

He startles again when a hand lands on his shoulder; it’s Caspar, who winces at Ashe’s flinch.

“Argh, sorry buddy, I promised not to give you a fright again and I already did it like five minutes later.”

Ashe laughs. “It’s ok. I think this place is just giving me the creeps.”

“Aw, why? It doesn’t look any worse than Garreg Mach did when we first came back, really. Remember how spooky the cathedral looked? And when we found that flock of bats in the knight’s hall?”

Ashe shrugs, and Caspar looks at him for a moment, and then says, “Hey, who do you think lived somewhere like this?”

“Huh? Oh.” Ashe looks around them again at the fountain, the tiles, the columns. “I’m not sure. People from Fódlan, it seems?”

“You know what I think? I bet it was like, some old order of Fódlan knights who were here in secret. Maybe they could train really well in the desert. Got all them hills to run up, right? And then the big beast outside was like, their mascot.”

“Mascot?”

“Yeah! Like Mewg is ours. Keeping them motivated and stuff. A symbol of their honour.”

Ashe laughs. “Mewg is our mascot, huh? Should we paint her on our shields?”

“Yeah! We could do her as a ferocious lion! But, uh, different to the Faerghan one I guess."

"Maybe with some flames, for the Professor—"

"—and some gauntlets for me!"

"—and a bow for me!”

“Sounds like a lot to fit on a shield, but I bet we could ask Ignatz to design something.”

Ashe grins, and Caspar grins back, and smacks him encouragingly on the shoulder, hard enough to leave a mildly throbbing after echo. Despite the pain, Ashe can still feel his cheeks warming a little as they look at one another.

“Hey, Ashe?” calls a voice from the other side of the room; it’s Claude. “We got a door over here, can we get your opinion?”

“Sure, we’ll be right there,” Ashe calls, and the two of them carefully make their way over to the other side of the room.

—

The door set into the curved line of the back wall is tall and imposing, made of wood studded and reinforced with iron. Bars and chains stretch its width, heavy and unforgiving, and above it sits a familar symbol.

“A crest of Seiros,” Ashe says, surprised. “Do you think this place was built after Garreg Mach? It feels older, to me.”

“Hard to say, since Garreg Mach hides its age well,” says Linhardt. “We’re all used to saying it’s a thousand years old, but have you thought much about how long that really is? It might look similar to this, if it didn’t have almost noble in Fódlan throwing their money at it in the hopes of getting on Seiros’ good side once they’re dead.”

Claude snorts at this, a rather undignified sound that he quickly tries to smother. “Well, however old it is,” he says, clearing his throat, “there’s a connection to the Church. Whatcha thinking, Ashe?”

“That’s a lot of locks,” Ashe says. “Let me take a closer look.” He steps forward and starts inspecting the door.

“If picking it isn’t going to work out,” Claude says as he looks, “We could work out a way to remove them by other means. I got a couple of things in my pack that if we mixed them together, might be acidic enough to burn through the wood…”

“That sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Linhardt says. “We could, however, work some fire magic on the bolts and hinges.”

“Sure, if you want the door to explode,” Claude begins, but before the two of them can get into it Ashe quickly says “Hey guys, it’s okay, I’ve got this.”

“Huh. You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.” He points at the floor below it, following the line of a faint scraped arc on the stone tile. Then he takes the door handle, yanks it and it shunts open with a groaning sound. “It's already open,” he says, and Claude barks a laugh.

“Wow. You know what, we're just gonna keep moving and not dwell on that one too long."

"If you say so," Ashe says. He's tempted to add your Grace to the end, but that might be pushing it.

After the grandeur of the first room, Ashe had been expecting more fountains, more statues, more traps. What they find is a short corridor with an already-sprung pit trap - the four of them edging their way around it, Ashe determinedly not looking down - leading to a low ceilinged, square room that’s looking rather sorry for itself. More statues sit broken, limbless, headless, desecrated. The remains of a mosaic sits across the width and length of the far wall - what can be seen of it is delicately arranged but most of it is hacked away or ripped apart. Fragments of its image - a wing like a wyvern’s, some golden stars, some plants - can be picked out, but the whole is difficult to discern.

The room is also a dead end - there are no other doors than the one they have just arrived through. It contains about 6 large wooden chests, ripped open, their contents long gone, and Ashe feels a pang of… regret and anger. Disappointment at these long-committed crimes. “Someone definitely got here before us, then, and gutted the lot,” he says with a sigh.

“Looks like they even stripped the tiles off the wall,” Linhardt says, making his way over and picking up a shard that has fallen to the floor. “Some of them had gold leaf, maybe? I wonder what this mosaic depicted.”

Claude’s frowning, disappointment obvious on his face. “This doesn’t make sense. How can this be the only other room in this place? A huge monster protecting it, such a grand reception hall? All for a room full of boxes?”

“It certainly doesn’t make any sense for it to end here according to my research,” Linhardt agrees.

“Maybe there was some really special treasure in here before it was stolen, and they expected any intruders to be caught by a trap by now,” Ashe says. “What was the phase you used, Linhardt? An incredibly important and rare artefact?”

“Maybe so, but surely we would have heard about that, right? But maybe…” Claude drums his fingers against his chin, looking at the boxes, and then he snaps them and points. “I got it. A bunch of bandits come here, get through the traps, find a load of treasure? They’re gonna grab it and bail while the going’s good, right?”

“This room is a distraction,” Linhardt says immediately. “For something bigger and better.”

Claude turns his pointed finger Linhardt’s way, grinning at him. “Bingo.”

“A secret entrance, do you think?” Linhardt says. “Another reason for the tiles to be missing, I suppose. Someone else could have had the same idea, taken them off to look. But if it’s not there, then where?”

Caspar is already lifting one of the chests above his head. “It’s totally gonna be further underground,” he says. “Betcha twenty gold there’s a trap door.”

“No more wagers, please,” Linhardt says, but the others start moving the rest of the chests, and sure enough, the slimmest, faintest gap in the huge stone flags underneath them can be wedged wider with Ashe’s sword and levered upwards. Caspar and Claude grab the edges together, hauling the whole slab away with effort. As they work Linhardt pores through his book again, sat on a chest.

“Did you know Saint Macuil was also a strategist for Saint Seiros back in the day?” Linhardt says idly as they drag the slab inch by inch across the floor. “Perhaps he served as inspiration for all of these intriguing diversions.”

“Yes, I did know that,” Claude says, sweat beading at his temples. “Thanks, Lin. You just stay sat there and keep telling us saints facts, okay?”

“As our valiant leader, Duke Riegan, I’m choosing to take that as an order.”

“You’re insufferable,” Claude says, and Ashe can hear the oddest trace of fondness in those two words.

Eventually, Ashe, Claude and Caspar look down at the stone stairway they’ve revealed, leading further into the dark underground.

“We’re pretty good at this explorer stuff, right? C’mon, up top,” Caspar says, triumphantly, and holds his hands out to Claude and Ashe for high fives. They oblige.

—

With Linhardt and Claude poking, recording and bickering at the front and Ashe and Caspar laughing behind, they follow the narrow dark staircase downwards until it leads, unfortunately and inevitably to a locked door. Rather than the showboating of the one in the reception hall, this is a simple and solid metal door, set with two keyholes, and it really is locked. Ashe looks closely at them both. This looks familiar in a way he cannot currently place. It could be the shape, or the pattern on the keyhole panel. Or it could be…. oh.

“Hmm,” he says, ice suddenly sinking in his stomach.

“What’s up?”

“I’ve heard about something like this, in another of those stories from Sreng that Sylvain told me,” he says. “It was about a man who lived in a castle on a cliff. He was a little eccentric, and kinda… paranoid, I guess. He thought the castle was going to be invaded all the time. So he filled his home with more and more traps, until he forgot what was safe and what wasn’t. I think he ended up setting one off by accident and died without an heir. Anyway, uh, there was a door like this. It looks simple enough, but only one of the keyholes is actually for the door. The other triggers a trap.”

“What kind of trap?”

“Well, um, in the book there was…” Ashe points above them. “Claude, can you give us some light up there?”

Claude lifts the torch, and orange light reflects the metallic gleam of a large blade, suspended above them.

“Holy shit,” Caspar says. “That thing would take the head off a demonic beast!”

“Yeah,” Ashe says weakly. “I was kinda hoping I was wrong.”

“So currently our options are we turn back empty handed, or we take a chance on being sliced in half,” Linhardt says, with an intonation that implies he considers both an equally calamitous outcome.

“Perhaps we can disable the trap before we try either of the keyholes?” says Claude.

“I’m not sure I wanna get too up close and personal with that thing,” Caspar says.

“Give me a boost, Caspar,” Ashe says. “I’ll take a look.”

“We’ll give you some space, hey?” Linhardt says suddenly. “There’s something I want to have another look at in the last room. Claude needs to look at it too.”

“Oh. Yes,” Claude says, a suddenly awkward lilt to his voice. “Yes I do. Let’s go look at the thing, Lin. Give us a shout if you need us, okay?” Then the two of them walk quickly back the other way, leaving Caspar and Ashe in front of the door.

“What was that about? Those two are so weird. Anyway. Giddy up, partner.” Caspar kneels so Ashe can sit on his shoulders, wrapping his hands around Ashe’s shins as he settles, and then hefts him upwards without a single sound of effort.

“Dude, you are so light, what the heck,” Caspar says, laughing in surprise. “Or maybe I’m just even stronger than I thought I was. I bet I could sling you over my shoulder and run around the monastery without breaking a sweat.”

“Please don’t do that,” Ashe says, and Caspar really needs to stop making him blush, but at least nobody else can see. Buoyed on Caspar’s shoulders, he squints. From what he can see, the mechanism for the trap looks similar to the one inside a lock, with a central tumbler and a release point. 

Ashe racks his brain, but the cold feeling in his stomach is making it hard to think. In the story, it had been one of the first few traps the noble had added to his castle so they’d described it enough for it to stick in his mind. Had they mentioned which keyhole had been the safe one? Did it even matter?

Caspar tips his head up, trying to look at Ashe. “Whatcha thinking, buddy?”

“I don’t know,” he says helplessly. “I think it’s too dangerous to try messing with the blade. But in the story, they said… I’m sure they said… ugh, I don’t know.”

“Hey, c’mon. I’m gonna set you down, ok?” Caspar sinks slowly back down until Ashe can climb down. Once he has, Caspar turns to face him and places his hands on Ashe’s shoulders, as Ashe had done to him outside the ruins.

“Talk to me,” he says, seriously, brow furrowed in concern. 

Ashe fidgets, anxiety thrumming through him again. “In the story, I think they said the bottom lock was the real one, but that doesn't mean that it’s the right one here! But I can’t mess with the blade, but… ugh. Turns out I’m not much use here anyway after all that nagging me to come.” Ashe tries to look away from Caspar, but Caspar follows his movements.

“Ashe! You’ve got this. You are like, super clever and good at this kinda stuff! Is there like, something else you can check? Can you like… test it somehow? Poke it a bit? I dunno, I’m just saying words here.”

“Huh.” Ashe thinks. “If the trap is designed to release when the lock tumbler turns, I guess we can try a couple of the pins but not the whole thing, see if anything sorta... wiggles while I’m working?”

Caspar smiles. “See! There ya go! And we can get Linhardt to watch while you work cause he’s probably the next easiest to pick up.” He yells back towards the stairs: “Yo! Claude! Linhardt! We need you!”

Claude and Linhardt reemerge from the other room back down the stairs, Linhardt smoothing down the front of his jacket, and Ashe and Caspar recount the plan.

“You’re absolutely sure?” Claude says, and despite his nerves, Ashe thinks _you’ve got this_ and nods.

“Do I really have to sit on Caspar’s shoulders?” Linhardt says plaintively. “Ugh, fine.”

Once he’s kneeling at the door Ashe can practically feel the blade over his head, heavy and sharp and devastating, and his hands feel slightly clammy as he unrolls his lockpicking tools. He wipes his palms on his breeches, but it doesn’t seem to make too much of a difference. 

“Ready?” he says, and behind him there’s an undignified squawk from Linhardt.

“Now we are,” says Caspar. “Hey, stop fidgeting! You should be used to this. Didn’t Leonie carry you all the way to Lake Teutates?”

“Yes, but I was asleep that time. Let go of my ankles!” Along with the bickering, Ashe can hear Claude laughing behind them all.

“I will if you stop fidgeting! Ashe, you were way better at this than Linhardt. Anyway, you’re up, buddy.”

“Okay.” He pushes the hook into the bottom lock and experimentally nudges the tumbler back and forth. “Can you see anything?”

“Hmm. Don’t think so.”

Ashe does the same to the top lock. “How about now?”

“Oh. Maybe? Try them both again.”

He does, and this time Linhardt sounds more sure. “Okay. Yes. Whichever lock you tried second, that’s the one that’s going to kill us all. Now put me down, Caspar, for the love of the goddess.”

Huh. So the story was right after all. “Okay. I’m going to pick the lock we think is safe now, I guess.”

“You’re doing great, Ashe,” Claude calls encouragingly.

It’s not an easy lock to work open, time worn and a little rusted. He blows powder into the keyhole to make it easier for the pins to move, slowly nudges each pin one by one instead of trying to rake the whole thing at once, and his still-clammy palms cause his grip to slip once or twice so he has to start all over again. All the while, the fear that their test had misled them nudges at the back of his mind, reminds him how quickly the blade will fall if they are wrong. Ashe is used to having his life at risk, these days, it comes with the territory of war, the responsibility of a knight. But the roar of the battlefield is a different kind of terror to the short, quick breathing of his three friends behind him in a torch lit ruin. This feels personal. 

_You’ve got this._

The last pin pops upwards with a click, and the tumbler turns under his fingers. The door swings open with a gentle push, light leaking out through the gap.

And the blade stays put.

“Awright! Ashe! You crushed it!” Caspar says, dragging Ashe up from where he’s kneeling at the lock and wrapping him in a dusty, sweaty hug that crushes their weapons awkwardly and somewhat dangerously between them. Ashe laughs a little hysterically into Caspar’s shoulder until all the adrenaline leaves his body at once and his knees briefly go a little wobbly. Luckily, Caspar still is still holding onto him.

“Very impressive again, Ashe,” Linhardt says, who seems to have recovered from his brief moment of indignity. “Thank you for your assistance. Now, if we’re quite ready, I believe we have some more exploring to do.”

He surges forward to push the door all the way open, Claude close behind, and then two sets of vocal blasphemy echo in the new open space. Ashe and Caspar disentangle, stumble to follow, and what Ashe sees next makes him gasp aloud.

—

The first thing Ashe sees in the impossibly illuminated space is the pond. Set deep into the floor, surrounded by deep blue tiles depicting a night sky, huge white and orange fish drift in and around among perfectly green, healthy reeds and lily pads. Dragonflies flit from plant to plant and skate along the water surface. A small wooden pier juts from one end out a little way into the water, high enough to sit and dangle your legs over the edge without getting your feet wet. 

“How in the world…?” Ashe murmurs, stumbling forward with dumbstruck feet, and then he pulls his gaze away, starts to look elsewhere, and there are yet more impossible things.

The room is twice as big as the reception hall at least, but while the last room had stood dry and ruined, the sound of rushing water echoes off the walls of the space and Ashe can see it flow clean and plentiful from vents in the walls into basins below. Hexagonal tiles like those in the reception room cover the floor, thankfully free of trap sigils. More plants sit in terracotta bowls or climb wooden trellis against the walls. At one side, Claude is lifting a glass vessel with reverent hands; even further in, having seemingly sprinted, Linhardt is carefully flipping through a set of papers with dense lines scrawled across them, his eyes wide. Even Caspar is looking at a small wooden box nearby, through his hands hover above as if afraid to touch it.

Curiously, the patterns in here are not looping Fódlaner knots like everywhere else they have explored. Something about them tickles at the edges of Ashe’s familiarity but he isn’t able to say exactly why. They’re beautiful, nonetheless. Everything in here is beautiful, warm, comforting. It feels like…

“It feels like a home,” he says out loud, and Claude’s head snaps up.

“I think it is,” he says. “Or was, I guess. It doesn’t seem like anyone has been here for a long time.” He smudges a finger along the vessel he’s holding and it leaves a thick smear of dust on the tip.

“How can all these fish still be alive? And the plants and insects?”

“Some fish can live an awful long time,” Linhardt calls across the space. He’s still holding the papers. “I suppose if there’s a little ecosystem going here, they could just keep going.”

“But how? We’re underground. There’s no sunlight. I don’t know about any magic that does something like this.”

Claude shrugs. “Seems like there’s plenty of light in here. And sure you do. We see it at the monastery every day. How plentiful the land is around Garreg Mach, compared to outside its boundaries.”

“Lady Rhea says that’s the blessing of the goddess.”

“Maybe here is blessed too,” Claude says, and wipes more dust off the vessel and shows it to Ashe. It has the Crest of Cethleann on it. 

“I don’t understand,” is all Ashe can say.

“I’m not sure I do entirely either,” says Claude. “But we’re in the right place to try to find out, huh?”

Ashe drifts through the space as if in a dream. While Claude and Linhardt can’t stop picking things up, making sketches of them, following dusty curves with their fingertips, Ashe daren’t lay a finger on anything. It feels a little like when he used to break into houses looking for valuables to sell and then stumbled upon a personal letter or a family portrait. A sudden reminder that people existed in this space. Except all of it feels like that.

“Uh, guys?” calls Caspar from afar, after a while. “Can you come have a look at this?”

“Kinda busy,” Linhardt calls; he’s now holding a figurine of some sort, peering closely at the face and tipping it this way and that as if trying to interrogate for its secrets through staring alone.

“No, like, you’re gonna really wanna see this, I’m not kidding.”

“I’m coming, Caspar,” Ashe calls, and picks his way through the plants and trickling water towards Caspar. Who is standing stock still, looking up at a giant metal statue. It’s like a crude facsimile of a female form, a beatific face etched at its top. Below, at its approximation of a chest, the Crest of Seiros sits.

“Woah, what is that?” Ashe says. “It’s huge.”

“I dunno, but I don’t like it,” says Caspar, which is the exact point that it flares to life, a shining lance of pure magic in its imitation of a hand, and starts to rumble towards them.

—

If there’s one thing that war has taught Ashe - and even Caspar, though he was reluctant to learn it and is even more reluctant to admit he had learnt it - it’s to know when to cut one’s losses and run. Ashe feels his legs starting to more even before his mind has caught up with the intention, and Caspar isn’t far behind.

Linhardt is still inspecting the figurine as Ashe and Caspar up to him.

“Put that down, we need to go,” Ashe tells him, and Linhardt protectively clutches it to his chest.

“Why?”

“No time to explain! Put it down, we need to go!” Ashe catches Linhardt’s sleeve and tugs it. “Don’t make me ask Caspar to pick you up again.”

“I’ll do it,” Caspar threatens urgently. “C’mon, Linhardt, we gotta go,”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me—”

The sound of rumbling and grinding comes from around the corner and then with a flash of light the statue’s lance of magic is flung into some columns not too far from where the three of them are standing. The columns promptly explode.

Linhardt put the figurine down and starts running.

“What was that?!” Claude calls from further towards the door. 

“Put down whatever you’re holding and run!” Ashe calls again, and stumbles as another explosion shatters a fountain next to him in a spray of masonry and water. The basin of the fountain cracks and sends water gushing out across the floor - the tiles grow slippery and he sees Caspar’s feet skid out from under him, but he recovers magnificently, pushing himself back to his feet with one hand. 

They’ve caught up to Claude now who is hastily shoving his pack onto his shoulders and starting to move. “What did you do?!” he splutters.

“We didn’t do anything! It just woke up!”

“What ‘it’?!”

“Big metal lady!” Caspar says. Another flash of light, and a collection of plants nearby explode in dirt, leaves and shards of pottery. The sudden destruction of what had lain undisturbed for who knows how many years would be deeply upsetting if they weren’t already running for their lives.

Ashe makes it to the door first and wrenches it open, and the four of them spill out one by one back into the dark stairwell, blind again until their eyes adjust. 

“We need to keep moving,” Claude says, grabbing Linhardt’s wrist and pulling him up the stairs.

“It can’t fit through the door,” Caspar says, but he takes Ashe’s hand and keeps running too.

“Sure, but it can keep making things explode until it brings down the whole ruin and buries us here!”

“Gotcha, let’s go,” says Caspar.

They make it halfway up the stairwell quickly enough, which is just as well because the door that Ashe had so carefully picked open is shortly after blown off its hinges onto the floor. Beyond it stands the metal statue, another lance in its hand, ready to throw, and Ashe braces for impact, still trying to scramble up the stairs. But there’s a curious whooshing sound, and a crunch, and then nothing. And despite himself Ashe looks back again.

Just in time to see the thin slowly grind to a stop and the light to die in its eyes, a huge metal blade plunged straight into the middle of it. Through the wreckage, small wisps of smoke plume.

Ashe stops moving even though he shouldn’t, and Caspar is caught by the motion, stumbling to a stop; when he turns to see what Ashe is looking at, he splutters into strangled laughter.

“Oh shit! It got hit by its own trap!”

Claude and Linhardt stop too, and Claude starts laughing too, and then Ashe can’t help it, and then they’re all just kind of laughing helpless on the stairwell for a bit.

“Whew. Okay. I think we’re done here, aren’t you, Lin?”

“I suppose so. Better to finish with one destroyed… whatever that is, than to continue and discover a second.”

“Yeah, let’s get the hell outta here,” says Caspar, Ashe nodding agreement, and Claude nods too, hefting his pack again on his shoulder.

A pack that looks rather heavier than last time Ashe saw it, if he’s remembering right.

“Claude,” Ashe says carefully.

“Uh. Yes, Ashe?”

“You didn’t happen to take anything out of that room, did you?”

“Uhhhhhhh,” Claude says.

_“Claude!!”_

“Look, it’s just a couple of things and if I hadn’t taken them they would have gotten destroyed by that thing and I just want to research them a bit more—”

“Put them back! Please! Your Grace!” Ashe wheels on Linhardt, whose hands fly protectively to his own pack. “Linhardt, don’t tell me you have things too.”

“No?” Linhardt says, extremely unconvincingly.

Ashe points a finger determinedly at the blasted open door, mostly blocked by the wreckage of the metal statue.

“You want us to put them back in there?” Claude says, raising an eyebrow, but Ashe just points again, his finger trembling a little, trying to set his jaw with enough determination to cow two nobles with crests. Caspar, still holding Ashe’s other hand, points two fingers at his own eyes and then at Claude and Linhardt.

“Oh, fine,” Linhardt says, and both him and Claude make a small pile of objects next to the pile of crumpled, smoking metal. “Is that good enough?”

“You promise that’s everything?” Ashe says, and after a moment Linhardt adds a couple of tiles from the box room’s mosaic, and the figurine he’d been holding when they’d caught up to him, to the pile as well.

“I could have sworn you put that down.”

“I picked it up again,” says Linhardt, halfway between proud and chastised.

—

On the boat back to Deirdru, Caspar and Ashe are dangling their arms over the side, letting the wave spray dust their arms so they shine in the sun. Claude and Linhardt are on a bench nearby, comparing notebooks.

“So how do you feel about being an explorer?” Caspar says. “Yay or nay?”

Ashe thinks about it. “I don’t know,” he says. “If we hadn’t woken up that metal statue thing, nothing would have gotten destroyed in that beautiful place.”

“But if we hadn’t gone at all, we wouldn’t know there was something that beautiful there at all,” pipes up Linhardt. “Nobody would. Bit of a ‘tree falling in the forest’ situation, I suppose.”

“If a big metal thing gets totally wrecked by its own trap, and us four are around to see it, does it make it awesome?” Caspar says, grinning. “I liked that bit. And when you picked the lock and didn’t get us killed! And when I totally called where the secret trapdoor was! And sneaking past the big guy. Twice. Actually I guess that means I kinda liked all of it.”

“I think we did pretty well, all things considered,” Claude says. “And hey. For a couple of hours I almost didn’t think about the war once. Before the thing tried to kill us, I mean.”

“I dare say you’re never not thinking about the war, Claude,” says Linhardt, with a tone that’s hard for Ashe to place. “But yes, it certainly was rather successful. Professor Hanneman is going to expire with jealousy. Ah, by that I mean, I’m sure my notes will be a valuable contribution to the field of Crestology.”

Claude snorts like he had back in the ruins and elbows Linhardt, who sniffs indignantly and then elbows him back.

Caspar taps a sea-damp hand against Ashe’s own, bringing Ashe’s attention back to where their arms hang side by side. He looks at Ashe and quirks a grin.

“Good job we were partners in justice, huh? Can’t take ‘em anywhere.”

“Seems so,” Ashe says, and then before the heat in his face can stop him, he adds “We make a good team, you and me, Caspar.”

“Yeah? You think? Maybe we can have another adventure some time.”

“Maybe!” Ashe says, a little too casually.

“Maybe, uh, just us next time, though. Seems like it’ll be less trouble,” Caspar says, looking out towards the waves.

“I don’t know about that,” Ashe laughs, pink still staining his cheeks. “But it wouldn't hurt to try.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was an absolute blast to write so I hope you have fun reading it too! The title is from Adventure by Be Your Own Pet.
> 
> Thanks so much to my husband and to Tama for support and encouragement on his, especially to my husband for helping brainstorm some indiana jones dungeon nonsense.
> 
> You can find me on twitter at @hausofthestars, I draw fanart and post nonsense. For example, please consider [this piece,](https://twitter.com/hausofthestars/status/1222206670123732999?s=20) which I didn't draw for this fic in particular, but has the spirit.


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